Ricerc@Sapienza

Moral sense is defined as a feeling of the rightness or wrongness of an action that knowingly causes harm to people other than the agent. The large amount of data collected over the past decade allows drawing some definite conclusions about the neurobiological foundations of moral reasoning as well as a systematic investigation of methodological variables during fMRI studies. Here, we verified the existence of converging and consistent evidence in the current literature by means of a meta-analysis of fMRI studies of moral reasoning, using activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.

Commentary: Cortical plasticity and olfactory function in early blindness

Perseverative cognition represents a prototypical example of how our internal thoughts can impact our psychological and physical health, as if we were facing an actual environmental stressor (Brosschot et al., 2006). The mechanisms involved—together with other emblematic examples like the placebo effect—provide clear evidence for brain-body interaction.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Deficits of self-awareness (SA) are very common after severe acquired brain injury (sABI), especially in traumatic brain injury (TBI), playing an important role in the efficacy of the rehabilitation process. This pilot study provides information regarding two structured group therapies for
disorders of SA.

Flexible and adaptive behavior requires the ability to contextually stop inappropriate actions and select the right one as quickly as possible. Recently, it has been proposed that three brain regions, i.e., the inferior frontal gyrus (iFg), the anterior insula (aIns), and the anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPs), play an important role in several processing phases of perceptual decision tasks, especially in the preparation, perception and action phases, respectively.

To evaluate the causes and management of acute ataxia (AA) in the paediatric emergency setting and to identify clinical features predictive of an underlying clinically urgent neurological pathology (CUNP).

Aim: Febrile seizures (FS) involve 2–5% of the paediatric population, among which Complex FS (CFS) account for one third of accesses for FS in Emergency Departments (EDs).
The aim of our study was to define the epidemiology, the clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic approach to FS and CFSs in the Italian EDs.
Methods: A multicenter prospective observational study was performed between April 2014 and March 2015.

Study Objectives: We aimed to compare 2-year-old children born preterm with children born full term regarding: (1) sleep characteristics, (2) temperament,
and (3) relations between sleep pattern and habits and temperament.
Methods: The study included 51 preterm children with normal cognitive, language, and motor development (mean = 20.94 months, standard deviation
[SD] = 4.08) and 57 full-term children (mean = 21.19, SD = 4.32). To assess sleep-related difficulties and habits and child temperament, mothers completed

Prokineticin 2 is a peptide that is widely distributed in the nervous system and influences a variety of brain functions, such as pain, food intake and circadian rhythms. We previously demonstrated that, in the animal model of Alzheimer’s disease, induced by the intracerebroventricular administration of Aβ1-42, there is a modulation of the prokineticin system in rat hippocampus.

Impairment of biliverdin reductase-A (BVR-A) is an early event leading to brain insulin resistance in AD. Intranasal insulin (INI) administration is under evaluation as a strategy to alleviate brain insulin resistance; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying INI beneficial effects are still unclear. We show that INI improves insulin signaling activation in the hippocampus and cortex of adult and aged 3×Tg-AD mice by ameliorating BVR-A activation.